One for the host.

This computer doesn't know a certain thing we say in Tea. I'm glad. It's been years, for me, but I know it.

In which I get to speak Japanese.

日本語 for me always has been academic—I've been too afraid to speak as a person, beyond the ritual words of 茶道—but yesterday I walked randomly into a barbershop, and his father was 日本出身, so we spoke Japanese. After the disaster that was the JLPT 日本語能力試験, I really needed that; I still study every day, but my heart hasn't been in it.

Maybe it's that I popped a CBD gummy before I left the house, but I had zero problem talking with that dude in Japanese.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping.

Thinking of evenings, 夕べ yuube and 夕方 yuugata and 晩 ban. I wonder whether 夕べ is related to 浜辺 hamabe, with べ meaning the edge of the thing. But 夕べ seems to mean specifically last night.

Among my building projects in Second Life is a traditional Japanese clock, but I still can't figure how time worked. I suspect they weren't super sure, either. What I've learned is based on seasonal words (季語 kigo) from Japan, but I'm in Philadelphia. Does Dec 18 in Philadelphia count as early winter? Midwinter? At least we share the cherry blossom 桜花 front, though maybe at different times. If I were writing in Australia, it would be summer, I think—an entirely different vocabulary of plants and insects. Sure, I can practice with the usual great poets, and the Moon is the Moon everywhere, but sometimes I might like to write about our own fireflies.

JLPT N3, the useful stuff.

I've written this and then lost it, and I'll forget and won't write it again, so.

For the JLPT N3, please pay attention to

- rendaku in the second half of the word—ぎょう, きょう

- similar kanji; watch the hen radical

- long vs short vowels; おう vs おお

and LEARN KANJI.

JLPT N3 (personal part; useful part to come).

Personal experience of it:

N3. Wasn't going to go, because I felt unprepared; went anyway. Train as advised didn't match Sunday schedule; took cab with friendly driver, hair blowing in the breeze from the open window. Waited outside; stream of students. Greeters super friendly; directed me to a room. Curious, why there would be computers, when I had a backpack full of sharpened #2 pencils. Angered, as the clock passed the start of the test. Next seat, when asked, had no idea of a Japanese test. Turns out I was in the media lab, not the JLPT test room.

Proctors let me join the second section in the correct room, with the understanding that it won't be scored. All that for nothing.

I wrote a whole thing on learnings, but it's disappeared, so I'll do it again maybe tomorrow.

Further JLPT panic.

Just taking a moment to freak out. JLPT is this Sunday. My N3 book arrived, and it seems to expect me to understand and speak Japanese. If the test were in Heian, maybe I'd have a chance. I'm good at languages, but only academically; talking with people and getting by in life aren't among my limited skills. I'm going to spend some time with my book outside.